54 SOME REFLECTIONS ON HOW EMPIRE CAME TO US. 



forced the Company to increase the number and improve the effi- 

 ciency of its soldiery ; and compelled us to intervene in Native 

 politics. The Black Hole of Calcutta, and the vengeance necessarily 

 exacted for that atrocity, involved ultimately the assumption of 

 authority over the provinces of Bengal and Orissa. Meantime the 

 Directors of the Company at home saw in these conquests only 

 entanglements and hindrances to trade and the consequent lessening 

 of dividends. Consequently Governor succeeded Governor, and 

 Governor-General succeeded Governor-General, each pledged to 

 the hilt to keep out of all political adventures. Yet, one and 

 all, they were compelled to increase our possessions in the 

 Peninsula. 



" The same is true, mutatis mutandis, of all our possessions. The 

 conquest of Canada, our greatest Colony, was forced on us by the 

 efforts of the French to jockey us out of the settlements made by 

 the passengers on the " Mayflower " in New England, and by those of 

 our countrymen who had settled in Virginia and the Carolinas. So, 

 too, with Egypt and the Sudan. No Minister could be more averse 

 from armed adventures than was Mr. Gladstone, who was yet forced 

 to undertake the expedition of 1883. Surely God has laid on us 

 this Empire as a responsibility ; we can preserve it only by fulfilling 

 the duties incumbent on us in consequence of its possession." 



